


Unburied

by Soulstoned



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Marriage, F/F, Fake Marriage, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Not Season/Series 08 Compliant, casefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-04-06 00:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19051411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulstoned/pseuds/Soulstoned
Summary: When Allura asked Pidge to be her fake wife for the weekend so she could attend a summit on a planet where all adult visitors must be married and accompanied by their spouse, she thought it would be easy, maybe even fun. Unfortunately she forged their marriage documents far too well and now they are legally binding.





	Unburied

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaggedwolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaggedwolf/gifts).



> A special thanks to Ictus for beta reading!

Pidge looks over the contents of the jeweler’s case with a sigh. She’s hopeless at this sort of thing, but there isn't enough time to get a second opinion. Allura called her this morning with a problem. There’s a summit this weekend addressing an underground smuggling ring that’s been plaguing the outer reaches of the Voltron coalition for months, possibly years.

That's not the problem. The problem is that the summit’s being held on Fazix, a small ice planet at the center of the area that is being terrorized by the smugglers. Fazix, as Allura found out this morning, has a rule that all adult visitors to the planet must be married or otherwise mated and accompanied by their spouse, a law that was apparently implemented when the king's husband left him for an attractive outsider.

Pidge turns her attention back to the rings. If she’s going to be Allura's fake wife for the weekend, she needs to be able to make it convincing. Which ring in this case would be suitable for a princess? She could probably buy any of the diamond rings out of the case and have it be convincing enough, but diamonds are boring and cliché, maybe Allura would prefer something more colorful?

Pidge kicks herself for caring. This isn't even real, and it isn't going to be real just because she picked the right ring. Allura has been her friend for ten years now, and if that were ever going to change it would have already. Pretending otherwise will only hurt more in the long run.

She looks at her watch, Allura is set to arrive to pick her up in thirty minutes having already stressed on her call this morning that she would be running behind due to the unexpected detour. The drive from the jewelry store to the hangar is twenty minutes on a good day, so allowing time to walk from the parking lot to the landing bay, she has five minutes to choose a ring, pay, and leave.

She takes a closer look at the first ring the jeweler suggested; it’s a classic style, gold with a single large diamond cut into a circle shape. It's very conventional, there's no way it could be mistaken for anything but a wedding ring.

Before settling on that, she decides to take a peek at the sapphire rings. Sapphires are just below diamonds on the mohs scale and they come in plenty of colors that aren't just boring white. Allura likes shiny things, Pidge reasons, she might as well choose something that Allura would want to wear after the weekend is over, maybe switched to a different finger.

It's in the bottom corner of the case that she sees it: a white gold ring with three stones, a pale blue sapphire flanked by two smaller pink sapphires. It’s perfect.

Pidge pays for the ring, adding a matching white gold band for herself as an afterthought and runs to her car to leave for the hangar. Her bags are already packed and in the back seat, and the forged paperwork she created after she received the call this morning is sitting in the passenger seat.

She manages to pull into the parking lot right as Allura's ship lands, grabbing her bags and the paperwork before rushing into the hangar to meet the ship. 

As she runs through the entrance, the door opens up on the Altean pod that Allura is piloting and Allura steps out wearing a pink and blue flight suit holding her helmet under her arm, her hair is pulled up into a braided bun. She’s beautiful.

Pidge's hand twitches over the ring in her pocket and she swallows the lump in her throat and walks toward the ship.

“It is good to see you” Allura says, stepping forward to pull Pidge into a tight hug. “There isn't much space in this ship if you would rather take yours, I was halfway to Fazix when I found out I couldn't go alone, and I didn't have the time to go back to Altea to switch."

Pidge thinks of the huge mess in her ship and cringes. It's a good ship, fast with an advanced autopilot system and two small separated sleeping quarters for when Matt or one of the paladins joins her on a trip through space. It's no green lion, but there are very few personal ships that could come close to comparing.

If only you could see the floor.

"My ship is out of commission, it's halfway through an upgrade," Pidge lies, "I'm sure yours is fine."

"It'll be cozy," says Allura with a grin and Pidge can feel her face heating up as she follows Allura into the ship.

"I'm sorry again for the short notice, I hope I'm not interrupting any plans," says Allura as she punches the planet’s coordinates into the ship's console.

"It's no trouble, it’s nothing I couldn't reschedule. How many potential fake spouses did you have to go through before you ended up stuck with me, anyway?" Pidge teases.

Allura hesitates for a moment, then looks away, "you were actually the first person I called."

Pidge's heart skips a beat at the thought of being Allura's first choice. It doesn't mean anything, but it's nice to imagine for a moment that it does.

Pidge takes a seat on the small cot in the back of the pod as Allura steers them out of the hangar and through the first wormhole jump. After the jump, Allura turns on the autopilot and joins Pidge on the cot.

"So, about our cover," she says. "You said you could procure proof of our union?"

"Yeah, I wasn't sure what they would require for proof, so I tried to cover all our bases," says Pidge, pulling the folder full of paperwork out of her bag. "We'll start with the easy stuff, here’s our marriage certificate. We got married on Halloween last year. I picked that date because I remembered it was your favorite Earth holiday so I thought it would be easy to remember if they quiz us.”

Allura nods, "That seems logical. Were we in costume?" she asks with a grin.

Pidge laughs, "No, but that brings us to our second bit of proof. It turns out it was lucky that nobody told you not to wear white to a wedding, because this could totally pass for a picture from our own wedding reception if we need it to," she says, pulling a picture out of the folder.  
The picture was taken two years ago at Keith and Shiro's wedding reception and shows Pidge and Allura smiling and leaning against each other to squeeze into the frame. Pidge is wearing a suit and tie, her short cropped hair slicked back out of her face. Allura is wearing a white lace dress and sparkly jewelry, her hair is in a fancy braided updo with flowers.

Allura blushes. "I'm never going to live down that faux pas, am I?"

Pidge chuckles. "It's really not a big deal. Keith and Shiro didn't mind, and it's not like there was a bride to overshadow."

"True, and I suppose it is coming in handy now," she says, looking down at the picture fondly.

Pidge holds her breath as Allura leans into her space to take a closer look at the folder.

"What is this?" Allura asks, pulling the last item out of the folder. "Allura Holt," she reads out loud with an amused grin. It's a Garrison ID badge, the picture is an old one of Allura in Garrison uniform that was taken during the defense of Earth almost ten years ago.

Pidge can feel her face burning and she tries to keep her voice steady "It's common on Earth for married couples to share a last name, it isn't necessary and not all cultures do it, but I thought it might help this seem more convincing if we did,” she pauses for a moment looking unsure “but we can totally ditch this part if you don't like it," she adds in a rush.

Allura clips the badge to her flight suit. "This is fine, every detail helps."

Pidge suddenly remembers the rings in her pocket. She hesitantly pulls them out, hoping Allura will be okay with what she has chosen. "Last but not least, wedding rings," she says, sliding the plain band onto her ring finger and handing the box containing the sapphire ring to Allura.

Allura opens the box and throws her arms around Pidge "It's perfect! Can I keep this when we're done?"

"Of course you can, what am I gonna do with it?" she says, slowly wrapping her arms around Allura to return the hug, trying not to linger too long and give herself away.

The trip to Fazix takes the rest of the day. They spend the rest of the trip catching up on each other’s lives and what has been happening with the garrison and Altea. When they land it is late at night and they’re greeted outside of the large stone fortress by a pair of guards who show them to their room. Allura reaches out to hold Pidge’s hand for the walk down the long hallway, causing Pidge to startle for a moment before remembering their cover.

She hopes Allura doesn’t notice how sweaty her palms are getting, even in the icy chill of the hall. The citizens of Fazix are large and furry, so the building isn’t heated to a temperature that would be comfortable for humans or Alteans. It’s better than the freezing winds outside, but only just.

They reach their room and the guards leave them alone to go inside. There’s a single large bed against one wall and an adjoining bathroom containing a large bathtub. Everything is clearly made for someone much bigger than either Pidge or Allura. Pidge notes with annoyance that she can’t quite reach the light switch, and there’s no way her feet are going to touch the ground in any of the chairs.

Pidge’s eyes settle on the bed as she props her suitcase up in the corner and realizes that she really didn’t think this through.

Allura seems to read her mind. “It’s fine, Pidge. There’s plenty of room for both of us,” she says, digging through her own suitcase for her pajamas.

Pidge steps into the bathroom to change into her own pajamas and then climbs under the covers of the large bed, taking the side that’s against the wall. The summit will start early in the morning and while her presence isn’t strictly required for most of it, she will at least have to accompany Allura to breakfast in the morning.

Allura steps into the bathroom to change out of her flight suit and emerges wearing a long flannel nightgown. She reaches over her head to turn off the light before climbing into the bed on the other side. Even with several feet between them Pidge can't help but hold her breath, afraid the slightest movement will disturb Allura or give her away. Her heart sinks when she realizes she is going to have to deal with this for the entire weekend.

After what feels like hours, Pidge finally falls asleep. She dreams about spending time in bed with Allura in a very different way. It's the type of fantasizing she's always careful to keep under control during her waking hours out of fear that it will show on her face.

She wakes up feeling soaked and guilty, hoping desperately that she didn't say or do anything in her sleep that is going to haunt her later. She feels something tickle her nose and reaches to scratch it but her arm is weighed down by something. Slowly, she opens her eyes to a mass of white hair. Allura has shifted during the night and is half on top of her, pressing her down into the mattress and against the wall.

Pidge gently works an arm free and pushes the mass of hair out of her face. She blinks for a moment, unsure of what to do. She is also uncomfortably aware that now that she knows what it feels like to get pressed into the mattress by Allura, tonight's dream is going to get that much more realistic.

With no way to tell how long she has before she needs to get up without getting up and waking Allura, Pidge closes her eyes and wills herself to fall back to sleep. Her eyes are only closed for a few minutes before the alarm goes off and Allura begins to shift. She pretends to be waking for the first time as a blushing Allura disentangles her limbs and gets up to walk into the bathroom to get changed. She decides it’s best not to acknowledge it.

They go to breakfast together and meet up with the coalition and planetary leaders who are tackling the smuggling problem. Artificial quintessence, far more volatile and dangerous than the real thing, has been flowing through this area like crazy. With the rift closing several years ago and most forms of quintessence harvesting outlawed, an underground supply ring has surfaced, comprising mostly of Galrans who had become dependent on it during the war.

Pidge tries to keep her thoughts on the talks but she is distracted by the way Allura keeps giving her small affectionate gestures and introducing her as her wife. If anyone knows the truth, they are kind enough not to say anything that would blow their cover. After breakfast is over and the first meeting is set to begin, Allura leans in to give her a kiss on the cheek as she steps into the meeting hall, leaving Pidge red in the face standing in the corridor with some of the other spouses.

She takes a deep breath and goes back to her room, trying to act natural. She has a couple hours before the morning meeting concludes and Allura comes to find her, so she decides to use that time to get some work done and try to keep her mind off things. She digs her tablet out of her bag to find she has 34 missed messages from Matt.

A wave of panic washes over her. It isn’t like Matt to send that many messages without a response. She worries that something may have happened to one of her parents or the Earth may be under attack again. She opens the first message and starts reading:

_MATT - Pidge, what the hell!?_

_MATT - Seriously Katie, did you elope?_

_MATT - I just had to process your damn marriage benefits_

_MATT - WHY WAS I NOT INVITED?_

It continues on like that for thirty more messages. Pidge is confused as to how Matt even found out about the fake marriage, and she has no idea what the hell he’s talking about when he says he processed her marriage benefits. She dials his number to try to get to the bottom of the confusion and reassure him that she isn’t actually married. He appears on her screen after the first ring, and is already talking before she can even say as much as “hello.” 

“I haven’t told mom and dad yet, but it’s only a matter of time before they find out, so if you want to have any hope of avoiding mom’s wrath you need to call her now.”

“I’m not actually married, Matt,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Usually you have to at least date someone before you can marry them.”

“Well your application for marriage benefits came across my desk today and your marriage has been registered in the system.”

“How did that happen? I forged the papers and the only copies were the one I brought with me, and the original I left on my desk.”

“Chip must have found the copy on your desk and thought you forgot to file it,” he says with a laugh. Chip is the robot assistant Pidge and Matt made together a few years ago after the war ended and they were able to move back home. “It’s fine, I’m sure we can undo it, we just need to show that the officiant isn’t a person who is licenced to perform weddings and we can get it tossed out.”

Pidge gulps. “So, um. What if, hypothetically, I had Shiro sign the paper so it would look more authentic, since he is a captain and can technically perform weddings?”

Matt facepalms. “Then you would either have to admit to fraud or get a divorce, or maybe an annulment? I’m not sure what the requirements are on those,”

“I’ll figure something out,” she says, sinking down in her chair. How is she supposed to explain this to Allura?

“Good luck, I’ll try to distract mom and dad,” he says, disconnecting the call.

She spends the next hour on her laptop trying to hack into the county government system to delete the marriage record, but she has no luck. It is locked down tight, and if the records have already been submitted to the Garrison, then Matt can only help her keep it a secret for so long. Once the news is out, deleting the record will be risky. Getting a divorce or annulment is probably going to be easier than spending time in jail for fraud, or making it worse by trying to hack into the government system. Getting caught would also mean dragging Shiro into this since he did sign the marriage certificate for her. Allura would probably be safe since she was unaware, but it could end up having repercussions for her as well.

Pidge tosses her laptop on the bed in frustration. There is no way out of this without explaining everything to Allura. She spends the next thirty minutes pacing around their room trying to formulate an explanation for what she did, then leaves for the meeting room where the summit is taking place. She needs to talk to Allura as soon as the meeting is over before she loses her nerve.

She spots one of the guards waiting outside of the meeting hall as she approaches. She hangs back, not really wanting to be social right now. A member of the Daibazaal delegation steps out into the hall and casts a furtive look around before following the guard down the hall.

That’s odd. Pidge follows at a distance, stepping into doorways to avoid detection. The two of them disappear through a reinforced door that seems to lead down a set of stairs. Pidge walks up to the door, but it’s locked. With enough time she could probably rig a way to get through it, but not without being detected.

Pidge turns to go back to the main hall and wait for Allura, pausing briefly to glance back over her shoulder to make sure she hasn’t been noticed. She’s still thinking about it when Allura steps out of the meeting room with the other coalition representatives. Allura smiles when she spots her and walks over to where she’s waiting away from the crowd.

Allura greets her with another peck on the cheek before wrapping an arm around her waist to walk with her back to their room. Pidge is amazed by how Allura can make it seem so natural when for her, every touch makes her feel like she’s about to vibrate out of her skin.

Once they’re back in the privacy of their room, Pidge loses her nerve. _Maybe it’s best to wait and drop this on Allura on the way home, so they don't accidentally blow their cover while they’re still here,_ she reasons. This is definitely a real concern, she is not chickening out.

Then there’s the matter of the suspicious activity between the Daibazaal representative and the Fazixian guard. Pidge doesn't want to fall into the trap of assuming someone is up to no good just because they’re Galran, but sneaking away during the meeting and disappearing behind a locked door is pretty suspicious.

She decides to bring it up with Allura to see if she knows anything. "What do you know about the Daibazaal representative?"

"Not much, usually Krolia attends this type of summit. He must be new, why do you ask?"

"I saw him sneak out during the meeting and disappear with one of the guards, it looked like he was up to something. The area they entered was locked down and seemed to go underground."

"That's odd, he said he wasn't feeling well, but he shouldn't have needed to sneak off with a guard to go back to his room. I'll call Keith and see if he knows anything about him," she says, pulling out her datapad.

Keith pops up on the screen. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you this weekend, is everything okay?"

"We’re fine, what can you tell us about Councilman Troz?" Allura asks.

"Oh, him," Keith says with a look of distaste. "He won the most recent election in district four in a landslide. I don't trust him."

"He was behaving strangely. He made an excuse to leave the meeting early, but then Pidge saw him entering what looked like a restricted area with a guard," says Allura.

"Keep an eye on him. I don't know much about him, but his district is where most of Zarkon's former commanders live, and he made a lot of comments about bringing Daibazaal to its former glory during his campaign," he says.

Pidge and Allura exchange concerned looks. "Thank you, we'll let you know if anything else out of the ordinary happens."

"Yeah, keep me updated. I can always drop by and help if you need backup. You’re on Fazix, so I would have to wait for Shiro to get home from work, but we could easily be there by morning."

"I think we can handle it, but thank you for the offer," says Allura. They chat for a few more minutes catching up on life, before they say their goodbyes and disconnect the call.

Allura sighs. "I’ll send you a message if he leaves early from tomorrow's meeting. Can you keep an eye open for unusual activity outside the meeting room?" 

"I'll try to find that guard and see what he's up to," says Pidge. "Once I'm sure the coast is clear, I'll hack through the keypad to have a look around downstairs."

"We're expected at dinner in a few minutes, but as soon as that’s over, we should have a look around, you can show me where they went."

Pidge nods. "With any luck, no one will be around and we can sneak inside."

\---------------

Dinner is uneventful. Troz and his partner are seated at the other end of the long dining table, so Pidge can't hear anything he is saying. He seems to be acting casual, nothing about his body language suggesting that he’s up to anything. The guard he was with earlier is posted by the door. He seems a bit fidgety, but that could just be from having to stand in one place for so long.

Pidge and Allura wait until the dining hall is nearly empty before taking off down the corridor toward the locked door. As they get closer, they hear the door begin to open from the inside. Allura pulls Pidge into a doorway out of sight.

"Follow my lead," she whispers, pulling her hair down from it's bun and untucking her shirt. She pulls Pidge's glasses off and tousles her hair before backing her against the wall as the footsteps approach. When it sounds like the footsteps are right outside the door, she swoops in and captures her mouth in a kiss.

Pidge feels like the breath has been knocked out of her. Allura deepens the kiss, bringing one hand up to cradle her jaw, while caging her against the wall with the other. Pidge doesn't have much time to react, resting her hands on Allura's hips and hoping that will be okay. The kiss goes on for what feels like a blissful eternity before Pidge hears someone clearing their throat in the doorway.

It's the guard from earlier. Dazed as she is from the kiss –not to mention Allura still has her glasses– she can’t read his expression, but his body language looks unimpressed. "You two should head back to the guest quarters, this area is restricted.”

Pidge reclaims her glasses as Allura apologizes. "I'm very sorry, my wife and I got a little bit lost leaving the dining hall and may have gotten carried away. Which way is it back to the guest quarters?"

Allura's face is the reddest she has ever seen it as the guard points towards the guest quarters. As they take off down the hall she hears him grumble something about newlyweds.

They’re careful not to look each other in the eye on the way back to their room, not sure what to say after their kiss. Allura is a better actress than Pidge remembers her being back their in Voltron Show days. She really made that kiss feel real.

"I think he bought it," Pidge says after they get back in their room, trying to break the tension.

The tips of Allura's ears are still red. "I'm sorry if I got a bit carried away back there, I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"It was fine, really. I've done stranger things to avoid detection. At least this time I didn't get stuck in an air duct," she says, trying to deflect from the fact that she enjoyed the kiss.

Pidge pulls out her laptop to check for missed messages and tries to catch up on some of the work she’s missing, while Allura takes a bath in the large tub. She seems to soak in there forever and Pidge finds herself wondering after a while if she drowned.

Once Allura is done in the tub, dressed again in her long flannel nightgown and robe, with her long wet hair wrapped up in a towel, Pidge takes her turn. Her bath is much quicker than Allura's, just taking a few minutes to scrub herself clean and wash her short hair before climbing out and changing into her pajamas.

When she leaves the bathroom Allura is under the covers, sitting up in bed reading an Altean novel. Pidge climbs in next to her and pulls out her tablet, angling it away from Allura as she opens a message from Matt saying that he looked up annulment laws, but it wasn't clear if she would qualify. If she does, it would have to be Allura who files as the wronged party since she is the one who wasn't actually present at their supposed wedding. Divorce might be simpler since there are no children or shared assets.

There goes her last chance at getting out of this without having to admit to Allura what she did.

Allura gets up to turn off the light and Pidge lays down to try to sleep. She has a busy day of staking out that locked door tomorrow, and it won't do any good to tell Allura what happened now and risk distracting her from what is becoming an actual mission. That will have to wait until they’re on their way home. Her last thoughts before drifting off are of Allura's lips closing in on her own.

When she wakes again, Allura is already up and disentangling their limbs as she climbs out of bed to get ready for the day. The tips of her ears are pink as she gathers her clothes up to go into the bathroom and change.

Pidge waits for Allura to leave the bathroom before doing the same, wanting to stay under the warmth of the covers for as long as possible.

Breakfast is uneventful, but as Pidge leaves she notices that there are far less locals milling about than yesterday, which seems odd. Looking out the window, a large number of them seem to be leaving. Allura sends her a message from the meeting that Troz didn't show and she gets a sinking feeling.

Pidge quickly walks toward the locked door and within a few minutes, she’s in. She isn't sure what her plan is from here, so she’ll have to make it up as she goes along. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs she is startled by a muffled yelling and someone—or something—banging hard on the wall. Drawing her bayard, she approaches the source of the sound and sees Troz, gagged and handcuffed to a door handle, his wrists rubbed raw from trying to get free. She realizes that she didn’t see him at breakfast that morning, meaning he must have been here since last night.

Pidge removes the gag and he takes a deep breath. "It's a trap! This whole place is set to blow. The smugglers wanted to get rid of everyone who opposes them in one fell swoop," he says as she uses her bayard to break the handcuffs.

"We have to evacuate the building," she says

Troz shakes his head. "I don't think there's enough time. The bombs are set to go off during this morning's meeting to ensure that all targets are inside."

"Do you know where they are?" she asks as she sends a message to Allura to get everyone out and now.

Troz nods. "There is one on each support column on this level, the idea was to cave the entire fortress in. They chained me down here once they realized I wasn't on their side," he says, rubbing at his wrist.

"We can defuse the bombs while Allura gets everyone out," she says, opening the back of the first bomb to clip through the wires.

Troz points toward the far end of the corridor. "We should start over there. If the meeting hall is being evacuated, we should start with the area under the guest quarters.”

They defuse several bombs without incident, Troz pointing them out one by one and Pidge opening them up to clip the correct wires to disconnect the ignition switch. She’s grateful these bombs are a type she’s encountered before and she isn't trying to figure this out on the fly.

They make their way from one end of the basement to the other. Troz points out the last few bombs, next to the stairwell by the exit. “If this is the last of them, go ahead and get out, there’s no use in both of us being down here if these things blow,” she says, gesturing towards the exit.

Troz nods and claps her on the shoulder as he takes off up the stairs. “Good luck.”

As she approaches the last bomb the interface begins to beep indicating it’s about to blow. She feels like everything's in slow motion as she turns to put as much distance between herself and the bomb as possible.

There is a loud boom and a crash and everything goes black.

Her ears are ringing as she regains consciousness. She’s buried in rubble with no idea how long she’s been out. It's impossible to focus on anything but the ringing in her ears and the pain tearing through her lower half. She chances a look down and sees that she is pinned beneath a collapsed stone wall.

She can see stones being lifted as someone digs through the rubble a few feet away. She tries to call out for help, but her voice doesn't want to cooperate. Everything is so fuzzy. She can see light coming through as an opening is made in the stone and closes her eyes.

She feels fingers softly brushing her face and opens her eyes again to see Allura hovering over her with tears in her eyes. "Just hold on, Pidge, I'm going to get you out of here," she says, brushing her hair out of her eyes before turning toward the stone wall that’s pinning her.

It crosses Pidge's mind that Allura is about to become a widow without ever knowing she was married. "We're married," she manages to rasp out as Allura looks for the best angle to lift the wall without causing any further collapse.

Allura pauses for a second and turns to her, shaking her head. "We had to pretend to be to come here. I'll explain it to you again after I get you out of here," she says, grasping a hold of the wall to lift.

Pidge doesn't want to think about what her legs look like right now, so she doesn't look as Allura lifts the wall away.

She tries not to scream as Allura picks her up to carry her to safety. She can tell Allura is being as gentle as possible, but even the slightest movement hurts. Allura presses a soft kiss to the top of her head and whispers something she can't hear over the ringing in her ears. "I messed up," she mumbles, trying to stay awake as Allura hauls her up through the hole she dug through the stone.

"You didn't mess up, you saved everyone. None of this was your fault," says Allura, rushing past the crowd of onlookers and towards the ship.

"No, not that," she says, struggling to keep her eyes open as Allura rushes into the ship and lays her down on the cot.

"We'll worry about it later," Allura says softly as Pidge drifts off.

\-----------

Pidge wakes some time later in an unfamiliar hospital. Allura is slumped over in the chair next to her, holding her hand and dozing off. Pidge's heart skips a beat when she notices Allura is still wearing the ring.

She lifts the blanket and is relieved to see that at least everything is still attached. She can't feel much at all right now, but she can still wiggle her toes, so she assumes it must be all of the alien painkillers in her system keeping her numb.

Allura stirs in the chair and smiles down on Pidge as she wakes, "You had me worried," she says, reaching down to brush Pidge's hair out of her face.

"What happened to the smugglers?"

"Troz told us everything, he has been working undercover with them for a while. The other Paladins are on Fazix rounding them up right now."

"That's good," says Pidge, trying to sit up on the bed. "There’s something I need to tell you," she says with a grimace.

"If you're about to tell me that you accidentally married me for real, I already know," she says with an amused grin. "I think you tried to tell me before, but when I called your family to let them know about your injuries, Matt let it slip,"

Pidge facepalms. "We can fix this, but it may take some time. Our divorce should be pretty straightforward…" she says, not meeting Allura's eyes.

Allura squeezes Pidge's hand. "I think a divorce would be a very strange way to start a relationship. How about a date instead?"

Pidge chokes, not expecting that response at all.

"Un...unless I misread, I'm sorry, I just thought," Allura stammers as Pidge bursts into laughter.

"A date sounds nice," she says with a smile.

"Kissing you in that supply closet is something I've wanted to do for a while," Allura confesses.

"Me too," says Pidge with a grin. "Wanna do it again? Maybe without the part where the guard walks in on us to break it up this time?"

"I'd love to," Allura says, leaning in.

Their second kiss is far more cautious than their first, but knowing that it’s real and not for show adds a new element that makes it even better.

Pidge is still going to have to deal with her mom’s wrath over her "elopement", and she isn't sure what kind of recovery time she will have to endure for her injuries, but right now this is the only thing that matters. Allura is at her side and the feelings she has kept buried for far too long are mutual. Everything is going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell in my general direction on Twitter! https://twitter.com/Peridactyl5xg


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